NASA LASER Communication System To Boost Data Transfer By 10 To 100 Times

The technological advancements in space technology is outpacing the data communications technology. While NASA has developed advance radio communication technology for quicker data transfer between the base stations and the satellites, the projected data transfer needs require newer technology to be developed. NASA has been using advance data compression techniques for long time but the recent advancement in using LASER to transfer data over long distances has proved effective. With the new ‘Optical communications’ technology, researchers will be able to boost data transfer rates by over 10 to 100 times. Currently, with the limit of 6 Mbps for Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter, it takes about 90 minutes to transfer a single high resolution image from Mars to Earth. But with the new LASER communication technology, this time period would reduce to only 5 minutes. NASA engineers can now look forward to receiving streamed videos from Mars! The technique is called Laser Communications Relay Demonstration aka LCRD.

NASA To Use LASER Beams For Data Communication (LCRD)

NASA aims to demonstrate the LCRD by 2016. It’s expected that the demonstration will take about 2-3 years time. More coverage on this topic on InformationWeek.